


Pavlovian

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [23]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Australia Day, Australian food, Coming In Pants, Explicit Sexual Content, Food Porn, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 05:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6457804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg Lestrade doesn't do Australia Day, per se. He uses the day for random celebrations. This year it's I Can’t Believe You’ve Never Eaten That Day, which involves shovelling a years’ worth of Aussie-style sometimes-foods into Sherlock Holmes in a single afternoon. Sherlock's on a massive sugar high and you know what that means? Sex. Lots of vigorous, noisy sex. With John and a pavlova. </p><p>And before you know it, John and Sherlock have Started Something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Australia Day

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:  
> thong - flipflop (for the feet!)
> 
>  
> 
> [The Tumblr post of Aussie foods that started this whole story](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/140411363078/23-australian-foods-that-americans-will-never-get)

Greg Lestrade is Aussie As, but he’s not a big fan of Australia Day.  That is to say, he thinks it’s a great idea to have a big party and barbecues and stuff as a national day – nothing says Aussie Values like a barbecue, sunburn and fireworks over the Yarra River at 9pm for the rugrats and at midnight for the rest of the revellers.

But it’s also a day for yobbos and jingoistic dicks wrapped in the Australian flag to be obnoxious about who gets to call themselves Australian. (Here’s a hint: anyone who doesn’t look like them is frequently excluded.) Then there’s the fact – which Greg discovered a bit late in life – that the Indigenous population naturally regards fireworks celebrating the date their land was claimed on behalf of a foreign power and their people systematically oppressed and eliminated, their children stolen, and their culture subject to deliberate eradication, as pretty poor fucking taste.

A national day is supposed to unite everyone.  Greg has come to realise that if this date, 26 January, is a symbol of attempted genocide for some, it's not doing its fucking job. So he doesn’t make a big deal of it any more.

(Mycroft’s the one who suggested 9 May would be a better date – the day that a united Australian parliament in the newly federated Australia first met, in 1901. Or 27 May, marking the 1967 census that finally recognised Indigenous Australians as human beings in their own country. Pretty much any date but the one it currently has could work.)

Nevertheless, Australia Day is a summer public holiday, so it can’t be allowed to go to waste. Greg repurposes it for other, random celebrations.

This year, they are celebrating 26 January as I Can’t Believe You’ve Never Eaten That Day.

This is Sherlock’s fault.

He and John will be picking up the keys to their new apartment tomorrow. Sherlock has already bought champagne in readiness. Mrs Hudson suggested making them a cake, and Greg suggested making them fairy bread instead.

‘What’s fairy bread?’ Sherlock wanted to know.

Greg’s eyebrows rose in shock at Sherlock’s ignorance. Mycroft shook his head and buried his face in his hands. He had this initiation fifteen years ago, and isn’t sure he’s fully recovered yet.

John had his own Australian Foods Initiation back when he was learning the coffee craft in Sydney. He thinks he knows what to expect.

He has forgotten that Greg is Mister Party, with the guiding motto "go big or go home".

*

John leans on the wall beside the piano. It seems the safest place right now, while Sherlock is running up and down the stairs and round and round the house, brandishing a reddish-pink feathery scarf, like a toddler dosed up on a years’ worth of sometimes-foods in a single afternoon. Which isn’t far from the truth.

Greg is on the other side of the piano, watching his boyfriend chasing the manic six foot hyperactive child with a single blue rubber thong. He is looking like he is starting to regret this whole thing. But then Mycroft gets Sherlock a stinging blow across the bum with the footwear, and Greg cheers him on, so maybe he’s not so rueful after all.

Sherlock turns and swats Mycroft across the face with the feather boa he found in the coat cupboard. Mycroft sneezes. Sherlock bolts up the stairs. Mycroft follows at breakneck speed, swinging at that juicy target with more vigour than accuracy.

'Stay out of our things, you little shit!'

‘Who keeps a feather fucking boa in the coat cupboard?'

‘Sherlock Holmes! PUT DOWN OUR BOA!’

‘Raspberry’s not your colour, brother mine!’

‘ _You’re worse now than when you were six_!'

Sherlock’s reply is a kind of unholy cackle.

John watches the brothers pelt up the steps, and then listens to the thumping of the pursuit being continued in the upper bedroom.

‘ _Drop that_!’ they hear Mycroft yell.

‘What is it? A space gun? Steampunk Captain Holmes of the Enterp… Oh!’ Sherlock’s tone of sudden horror is followed by a metallic clatter.

‘Don’t _throw_ it!’ Mycroft yells, ‘That was a Christmas present!’

‘Space gun?’ John asks, with a tilted eyebrow, and then he purses his lips and his brows draw together. ‘Dildo,’ he concludes.

Greg looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to laugh his head off or hide in the coat cupboard.

‘It’s beautifully made,’ says Greg defensively, ‘Three speeds.’

Sherlock comes clattering down the stairs again, talking so rapidly he keeps running whole phrases together.

‘ _Ohmygod_ , _Mycrofthasasteampunkdildo_! It’s _hideous_ , well no, not hideous, very stylish. _Canwehaveone?_ Forget it, we don’t need one, _Ilikeyourcock_. _Butatoywouldbefun_. _Howdoyoufeelaboutanalbeads?_ Shut up Greg, _noneofyourbusiness_ , and don’t think I don’t know _abouthemotorbikething_ , ugh ugh, never offer me a ride on that bike again. _IlikeridingJohnbetter_. JohnJohnJohn, don’t be cross John. I’m _goingtohavesexwithyou_ in every room of _ournewhouse_ , either way, both ways, _allthewaysfuckyes_. Is there any more fairy bread?’

Sherlock pauses to take a gulp of air, his cheeks flushed with exertion and eyes big and bright.

John doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone so hyped up on sugar in his life.

John doesn’t seem to realise that he is, himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet and tapping his fingernails rapidly on the side of the piano. His own mega-dose of sweet Australian foods hasn’t yet been unleashed, so it’s all still coursing through his veins like sherbert-esque cocaine, though of course he hasn’t eaten a fraction of the sugar that Sherlock’s packed away.

Sherlock has, in the course of the afternoon, eaten four lamingtons (two with jam and cream), two Iced Vo-Vos (the second one to be sure he didn’t much like the first), a single Fantail (the caramel centre did not agree with his teeth), a Rainbow Paddle Pop and a Golden Gaytime. (They both agree that the name is better than the ice cream.)

Then there’s the fairy bread.

John isn’t keen on fairy bread. He doesn’t like the texture of the hundreds-and-thousands – wee balls of coloured sugar sprinkles – on his tongue, or the combination of those with the white bread and butter. But Sherlock has been absent-mindedly picking up triangles of them and crunching them down in between taste-testing all the other things. He seems to like pressing his tongue into the confection, or pushing the bumpy side up against his palate.

(John is taking notes at how much Sherlock enjoys even the most awful foodstuffs as long as they have an interesting texture.)

John’s Aussie Food Downfall, by the way, was the Tim Tam Slam. Following Greg’s gleeful instructions, John bit opposing corners off the chocolate biscuit that reminded him of a Penguin biscuit from home. The he put one bitten-off end in a cup of coffee, sucked hard like it was the most useless straw ever, and then shoved the whole thing in his mouth and washed it down with the coffee.

Okay, yes, he conceded that this was fucking awesome. A bit harder to do with a big glass of cold Milo, and potentially a waste of good port to use a glass of Brown Brothers Tawny Port for the same purpose. Not that this stopped them from doing both and giving the attempts a mark out of ten.

Sherlock’s particular Achilles heel isn’t actually the fairy bread. It’s Greg’s pavlova – the crunch of the meringue and the foamy marshmallowy interior and the slathering of cream and the passionfruit, strawberry and kiwifruit topping just seem to excite every tastebud in his head. He practically crooned while eating it, loving the different textures and sharp explosions of flavour. It took him a whole ten minutes to eat it, savouring every mouthful.

Sherlock’s no stranger to pavlova, but this is the first time John’s seen him eat it. That’s fucking adorable, John thinks, how Sherlock so lovingly enjoys the sticky cake. He declines the forkful Sherlock offers him because it’s just so gorgeous watching Sherlock licking the fork. Makes John think of sex, that does. Sex with Sherlock. Sex with Sherlock’s licky tongue and that sinful mouth sucking on the tines to get all the meringue and they soft white gooey bit off.

John is hyped up on sugar and now lust. But that’s not the problem. Nor was fairy bread or even the pavlova.

No. Where the day went seriously downhill, resulting in the Epic Brother Battle of the Boa, was after the Vanilla Slice Theft.

Greg’s home-made vanilla slices have been declared worthy of a blue ribbon at the Royal Show. Better even than the ones from the bakery in Woodend. Sherlock would have eaten two of them, only Mycroft – who has been steadily consuming sugared goods head-to-head with Sherlock – snatches it off him and jams the whole thing in his mouth at once to prevent Sherlock snatching it back.

The Holmes boys have a Substance Abuse Problem, it seems, and the substance at issue is Sugar.

Mycroft abandoned what little dignity remained after swallowing the vanilla slice whole by doing a victory dance. The puffs of fine icing sugar on his lips and chin and the tip of his nose were a kind of war paint at that stage.

Sherlock lunged for Mycroft and poked him in the cheeks, causing Vanilla Slice Fallout. Mycroft wiped custard off his chin and into Sherlock’s face. Sherlock grabbed a fistful of lamington and attempted to rub it into Mycroft’s hair, but Mycroft, that master strategist, had already taken off at a run.

That was four minutes ago.

In the course of their cartoonish chase around the house (which is giving both Greg and John an insight into what these two were like as kids), Sherlock has found and taunted Mycroft with the feather boa (which is Greg’s, as it happens), Mycroft has slapped Sherlock’s arse with a bright blue flip-flop and Sherlock has discovered and been appalled by a steampunk dildo.

And now Sherlock has bolted into the living room like The Flash on crack and wants more fairy bread.

Also, sex. Lots and lots of sex. In their new house. Only they don’t get the keys till tomorrow.

Mycroft comes running down the stairs then. He sees John and Greg watching him and slows to a dignified saunter. The effect is somewhat ruined by the boa around his neck, the steampunk dildo in his right hand and the remnant icing sugar on his nose.

Greg beams at Mycroft, who preens.

‘Who’s my beautiful boy then?’ Greg wants to know.

Mycroft, suddenly elegant and imperious as a queen, glides down the stairs. The dildo is like a very short sceptre. He flicks a button and the dildo begins to rotate slowly on its base.

‘The idiot younger brother didn’t break it,’ notes Queen Mycroft.

‘We should probable give it a test run to make sure,’ says Greg, with one eye on Sherlock. The effect of his words on Sherlock is gratifying.

'OhgodgetmeoutofhereJohnJohnJohnJohnJohnJohnJohn...’

‘Thanks for a lovely day,’ says John.

Greg nods. ‘My pleasure. Later this year I hope to introduce you to Democracy Sausage.’

Mycroft snorts inelegantly at tis comment, spoiling somewhat his regal procession from the stairs to Greg’s arms. ‘I’ll show you Democracy Sausage,’ he says scornfully.

It appears Holmeses get horny when high on sugar.

Greg licks icing sugar off Mycroft’s nose and then they kiss.

While their hosts are distracted, Sherlock grabs the remaining pavlova and John hustles him out the door.

*

The entire ride home in the taxi, Sherlock’s knees bounce up and down, making the plate of pavlova on his lap shimmy. John offers to relieve him of the cake, but since his own feet are jigging on the spot, it’s not much help.

Honestly, they’re both a little high and more than a little silly on sugar right now, so when Sherlock insists on bringing the pavlova into the bedroom at John’s place, John makes no objection. Even though they’ve both eaten enough sweets to last at least until ANZAC Day. Next year.

Nobody’s sure who starts the next bit. All they know is that ten minutes after getting home they are naked on the bed, and Sherlock’s nipples are smeared in pav filling and cream and John is rubbing them with a half strawberry until he’s happy with how perky Sherlock’s nipples are and much Sherlock is writhing on the sheets. Then he closes his mouth over strawberry and nipple and crushes the fruit against Sherlock’s body, and then he sucks and slurps up pulp, juice and filling along with every delightful whine and groan Sherlock makes.

Much smearing of pavlova happens then. Much placing of kiwifruit and strawberries on nipples and throats and bellies and cockshafts, ready to be sucked off again. Cream and soft filling is applied to and then licked off hot skin, especially the velvety heat of erections. The crunchy meringue is shared from one mouth to another. The sweet smell of it is everywhere, rising from the heat of their bodies.

The plate of it is in the floor by the bed, within easy reach.

Sherlock ends up lying on his back, half draped off the mattress, so his head, shoulders, upper body and arms are on the floor. His hands are flung over his head and flexing with the rhythm of his pleasure. The blood is rushing to his head but equally to his cock. A weird but light-headedly glorious sensation. In his throaty baritone he is chanting, _ah ah ah ah ah ah god fuck yes John John John ah ah ah ah..._

The reason for the chanting lies between Sherlock’s legs, face nestled between his thighs, sucking and licking and humming buzzy joy. John has a firm grip on Sherlock's hips to keep him from sliding wholly to the floor.

Periodically, a knocking sound bashes on the wall that adjoins this room with Irene's but if they hear it, they're ignoring it utterly.

John reaches down to the plate, to slide a finger through the gooey bit of the meringue. He spreads it lavishly on his boyfriend and sucks pavlova off Sherlock’s cock while Sherlock is sprawled at that helpless angle. Sherlock has his feet on john’s shoulders and his knees spread wide, displaying of his plenty for John's delectation. He is gasping and humping up into john’s mouth and has an expression of such abandoned joy whenever John glimpses his face that he spurs John onto greater feats with his tongue and lips and suction.

Sherlock comes so loudly that they probably hear him down at Mork Chocolate Brew House.

Panting for breath, Sherlock slithers the rest of the way into the floor. His bum hits the carpet with a soft thud, and a slight rattle as his hip nudges the plate of pavlova. His ankles are still on the bed on either side of john’s knees.

Sherlock's breathy panting becomes a long and sated moan.

John peers over the bed. 'You ok babe?'

John is on his hands and knees, looking at the wreck he's made of his boyfriend. His erection juts up, thick and dark and wet, and Sherlock thinks it looks fantastic.

#johnsdeliciouscock #cockalicious #cometomecockaliciousjohn

#come _on_ mecockaliciousjohn

Sherlock likes to suit word and deed, and thinking swiftly, he brings one foot down into the middle of the pavlova, gets it good and slick with cream and gooey centre, and lifts his foot again to press the slippery arch against John's cockaliciousness.

'Fuck my feet, John,' he urges. He shifts to captures that beautiful prick between the arches of his feet, so that his meaning is clear.

John hesitates the briefest moment before clasping his hands around Sherlock’s feet to make a tunnel.

'Like this?'

'Oh god, yes,' groans Sherlock and he slides pavlova-sticky feet along John's length.

John, kneeling on the bed, thrusts experimentally.

Sherlock moans lavishly and flexes his feet and says, 'God. Yes yes yes fuck my feet, come all over me, please, please, john, john, john...'

From Irene's room, another irate knock on the wall goes either unheard or unheeded.

Then John is holding Sherlock’s feet to his crotch, rocking his hips and sliding his cock between the cake-slippery arches of Sherlock’s feet, all initial misgivings washed away with the scent of fruit and cream and meringue.

'Come all over me John.' Sherlock urges him. 'God yes look at you. Fuck my feet with your gorgeous big cock, John. Beautifulbeautifulbeautiful. Come all over me. I want your come all over me. Yes! yes! Come on me!'

John does, with a lusty shout. Several lusty shouts.

Then he finds there's too much distance between him and his love, who is lying on the floor, gazing adoringly up at him, feet and thighs and crotch and chest all smeared in pavlova and come.

In a kind of sex-dizzy, loose-limbed commando crawl, John clambers off the bed, down to Sherlock's side on the carpet, and drapes himself over Sherlock to kiss him.

The angry knocking from Irene’s room has stopped. They can now hear the rhythmic squeaking of Irene and Kate in their own bed, and alto-and-soprano moaning. Possibly it’s meant to be retaliation.

John starts to giggle. Sherlock responds to John's warm body quaking next to his by holding him tight.

He lips a glob of white goo from john’s hair.

'Pavlova,' he concludes, which sets john to giggling again, which sets Sherlock to giggling too, and they cling to each other, laughing, while fireworks go off next door and kilometres away, over the Yarra River.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now all I want to do is eat pavlova.
> 
> Instructions for a [Tim Tam Slam](https://www.facebook.com/BuzzFeedOz/videos/1697042367194119/)
> 
> I'll explain Democracy Sausage some other time...


	2. Settlement Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Settlement takes place on the new apartment. Sherlock collects the keys and Mrs Hudson gives John leave and a picnic lunch to go and celebrate the big day. Celebration, which includes a couple of mini pavlovas, takes the inevitable turn to celebratory sex.

John feels no compunction next morning about leaving Sherlock to wash the pavlova-and-come-infused sheets they slept in, because Sherlock was the one who tumbled John onto the bed and sprawled over him and refused to let either of them strip the bed or shower. His sugar crash was spectacular and snuggle-driven and he Octolocked John for seven straight hours.

John is worried he’ll be late for work though, what with having to wash his hair and moustache thoroughly for pav-detritus.

He dashes into the bedroom to dress, twisting the wax into the ends of his moustaches with one hand as he grabs socks from the drawer with the other.

Sherlock is sitting up in the bed, looking louche, hands behind his head and his hair falling in magnificent disarray over his brow. He watches John get ready while looking like a very smug and completely debauched Caravaggio portrait of John the Baptist. A bit of kiwifruit is stuck to his upper thigh and his hair is decorated with meringue.

Sherlock grins at John like John is made of Christmas and orgasms and says, ‘You’re pretending to be cross about the mess, but you’re not cross.’

John raises an eyebrow at him and tightens his lips to hide a smile. ‘Why would I be pretending to be cross about the mess instead of actually cross about you not letting me clean up last night?’

Sherlock just grins at him and deduces: ‘You think you _should_ be cross about the mess and you think you should feel guilty about leaving me to clean it up, whereas in fact you don’t feel guilty at all, about any of it. You loved the sex, you loved me sleeping all over you smelling like a sweet shop, and you think I look edible in this bed with bits of pavlova on my arse…’

‘And your nipples. And I bet you’ve still got it on your cock.’

Sherlock obligingly lifts the sheet to display his soft, plump cock with a smear of dried gooey pavlova along the shaft.

John unconsciously licks his lip, and Sherlock drops the sheet back down.

‘All right, sprung,’ admits John, ‘You’re fucking gorgeous, you smelled fantastically of pavlova and sex all night, and if it wouldn’t make me late for work I’d climb on top of you right now and suck you dizzy. In fact…’ John seizes the end of the sheet and pulls on it so he can reveal his boyfriend in his sticky, naked glory, but Sherlock laughs and leaps out of bed, flashing his bounteous arse as he does a runner for the shower.

‘Settlement’s at 9am!’ Sherlock calls over his shoulder, ‘I’m going to get our keys afterwards! Oh. Morning, Irene.’

‘ _Cover it with both hands_!’ John hears Irene yelling at Sherlock, and he just grins like an idiot because Sherlock’s obviously got a chubby on and needs both hands to hide it, _yesfuckingsirree_. John Hamish Watson is one lucky man.

John gets to Captains of Industry in plenty of time and is on form today with the hoards thronging to the café for coffee and breakfast. It’s like he’s still on the sugar rush, his hands are moving so fast, with every station on the coffee machine working to capacity and him doing the timing of the shots by instinct to keep the coffee flowing.

The lull has hit when Sherlock arrives, hair swept back, suit impeccable, demeanour sharp and focused. You’d never know to look at him that he spent the night cuddled up in lascivious slumber. He goes to the coffee counter to place his order, which John is already making for him, and instead of ordering, Sherlock puts two sets of keys on the counter.

John stares at the keys and blinks at them, like they’re about to turn into a bunch of dancing mice, complete with top hats and tap shoes. He finishes Sherlock’s coffee on autopilot and puts the cup on the counter next to the keys.

‘It’s done. The apartment’s ours,’ Sherlock announces.

Both their names are on the documents. Sherlock insisted. John put in all the savings he had. John insisted. The place is theirs now, paid in full.

‘John?’

John lifts his head because Sherlock sounds worried. John’s blue eyes are glistening and he swallows hard.

‘Ours,’ says John, unable to say other syllables, but that one is packed full of meaning.

Sherlock brushes John’s lower lip with his thumb. He cups John’s cheek in his hand. He damns the counter that is in the way between them, and takes up John’s left hand. He kisses John’s fingers, then leans across the counter to kiss his lips.

‘Ours,’ Sherlock says.

John grins, though his breath catches. Sherlock reads a cascade of feeling in John’s eyes and his joyous, wondering, boyish grin. John’s expression contains amazement and excitement and hope; it contains relief too. Sherlock knows from their long talks that John has led a restless life, and has travelled a half a world away from his birthplace trying to find a place to settle, and Sherlock can see it happening. He can actually see John settling into his own bones somehow, like here’s the perfect place for him to come to anchor at last.

‘Our home,’ breathes John, ‘Yours and mine. Together,’ and the taste of those words on his tongue seem to make him taller and more vibrant and more fully present than Sherlock has ever seen him.

Then John giggles a bit, because the happiness has to spill out somewhere and it’s either that or tears.

Mrs Hudson emerges from the kitchen to see why the coffee queue is getting so long. Sherlock pockets the two sets of keys, and picks up his coffee to show that he’s not wasting time, he’s _caffeinating_.

John tries to be serious, to focus and get on with the coffee orders, while Sherlock stands a little to one side. John seems as calm and in control as ever, but that grin keeps escaping to curl up the corners of his moustache.

Sherlock sips his coffee and watches John avidly. Devotedly. He very much wants to climb over the counter and have John right against the coffee machine, or else fold him up in his arms and kiss him forever or else dance with him all over the café and down the street to their new home.

Home. _A home_. He’s lived in houses and he’s lived in flats and apartments but Sherlock doesn’t know that he’s lived in a home before. Not for a long time, anyway. Not like Mycroft and Greg have got a home. Living free-range with John these last few months – at John’s place and at the hotels – Sherlock’s the happiest he’s ever been. He knows now that wherever they live, if they’re together, it’ll be good. But now they’ll be in a space that’s all theirs to wholly inhabit, a joint venture. Sherlock and John. John and Sherlock.

_#homeiswheremyjohnis_

‘Oh go on the pair of you,’ says Mrs Hudson suddenly. She’s pretending to sound exasperated, but she’s also shoving a wicker basket into Sherlock’s hands. ‘But I want John back by one for the second lunch rush. Violet, take over.’

John begins to protest and then decides that’s stupid when all he wants to do is visit their new home just thirty metres down Little Bourke Street. He drags off his apron, kisses Mrs Hudson soundly on the cheek. Sherlock’s hands are full so he takes Sherlock by the elbow and they’re out the door.

Three minutes later John is reaching into Sherlock’s pocket for the keys – Sherlock still has his hands full of heavy basket – and he opens the door to their new apartment.

Sherlock deposits the basket on the kitchen bench and peeks inside – Mrs Hudson has made them a picnic lunch. She’s been watching them get all excited about this day for months now, and she’s made this gift for them. Frittata and rolls and cheeses. A bottle of wine. In a sturdy container, two mini pavlovas. Getting in on the _Introduce Sherlock to Aussie Food_ spirit, no doubt. There’s even a picnic blanket in there, and a note.

_For your first meal of many in your new home. XX Martha_

Hand in hand, Sherlock and John carry out an inspection of the apartment. Technically, it’s to see that all is in good condition, but they spend half the time talking about where their things might go and the other half pashing in each room as a kind of christening.

Back in the main room they stand and look out through the west-facing arched windows. They can see the roof of the building in which Captains of Industry resides. Beyond it is the clock tower of the old GPO, and it’s chiming out the hour. 11am. Early for lunch, but neither ate a proper breakfast – they’ve been running on anticipation and residual sugar.

John shakes out the blanket then takes off his shoes and socks, his jacket and waistcoat, folds them and puts them all neatly aside. He helps Sherlock out of his coat too, and lines Sherlock’s shoes (socks folded inside them) beside his own.

Sherlock sets out the meal, the plates, the glasses, then finds that Mrs Hudson hasn’t packed cutlery. Never mind. They wash their hands in the kitchen sink – there’s a pump pack of hand soap on the bench, and a tea towel to dry their hands on.

And so Sherlock and John break bread and share salt on the first day of their official new life in their official shared home. Who needs cutlery when there are willing hands to offer food and willing mouths to accept the offerings? They feed each other, and sip wine and gaze out at the view, remarking on which buildings they can see. They look up at the ceiling and remark on the sturdy hooks set in it, from which Sherlock deduces the previous owners had installed a child’s swing.

The spacing of the hooks and the way this living area is exposed to the view of people living in the Nova Apartments down the street indicate it was in fact a swing and not a harness used for sexual purposes. That doesn’t stop John thinking about having sex with Sherlock here by the windows. He knows Sherlock has an exhibitionist streak. (He’ll even admit to having a bit of one of his own. Sex by the Captains of Industry window and again outside on Christmas morning are not the choices of an inhibited man.)

You’d think neither of them would want to eat pavlova again after yesterday’s excesses, but you’d be wrong, and let’s face it, not a lot of that pav got actually _eaten._ Here they are again, feeding each other meringue and cream and fruit and gooey pav centre, and here they are again succumbing to the moment. They kiss. They dab cream on each other and lick it off.  

John decides that it’s safer for the sanctity of his shirt and trousers to take them off, too. Sherlock helps him but doesn’t bother to fold them neatly, only flinging them in the general direction of the bench while John unfastens Sherlock’s trousers so he can shove his hand down them, find Sherlock’s cock and start fondling. Eventually, Sherlock’s trousers go the way of John’s. His shirt is unbuttoned and his nipples are hard little peaks, and his cock is full and hard and hot.

John is on his back on the blanket, jocks still on but pulled down so his erection is jutting free. Sherlock is sprawled over him, pinning him happily, warmly down. He’s lazily pulling on John’s cock. John is likewise stroking Sherlock unhurriedly.

Between their bodies, John has just enough movement in his right arm to keep offering the mini pavlova base to Sherlock. Beyond the crunchy exterior is that gloriously chewy bit, all soft from the gooey centre. Sherlock is lipping and sucking on that part of the pav base, in time with his hand on John, in time with John’s hand on him. John is gazing raptly at Sherlock’s mouth on the meringue and periodically he leans up to kiss the corner of Sherlock’s mouth, to lick it and hum approval.

Then Sherlock begins to thrust in earnest, wanting more speed. John obliges with a fabulous twist of his wrist, until Sherlock is bucking into John’s fist and sucking at the pav until John drops it and then on John’s sticky-sweet fingers, and he’s pulling on John’s gorgeous cock. John has bent his leg to plant his foot on the floor so he can spread wider and has leverage to rock up into Sherlock’s fist too.

They rut and moan and suck and thrust and come in a sated mess, then cling to each other, kissing each other’s faces and throats and shoulders.

Sherlock trails fingers over John’s spent prick, loving the feel of it on his skin. John hard, John soft, John on the way up or on the way down. It’s not all about John’s cock, obviously, but there’s no denying that Sherlock is fond of it. #pricktastic #cockalicious #wellhungjohn

John squirms and giggles and cups Sherlock’s sticky, soft cock in his palm and squeezes it gently. ‘You’re a menace.’

Sherlock intends to make a cheeky rejoinder but all he really wants to do is kiss John, so he does. He kisses him slow and soft and deep, and John winds his arms around Sherlock and kisses him back.

They find the abandoned, gummy mini pavlova base under John’s right shoulder. John has to shower before he can go back to the café, and they haven’t any towels so he dries as well as he can with the tea towel while Sherlock watches, grinning.

‘Have I told you you’re a menace?’ John asks, but he’s contented and centred, and very efficient with the thin rectangle of cotton. Sherlock knows John has showered under even less ideal conditions in Afghanistan. A tea towel in an unfurnished apartment might be considered a decadent luxury in comparison to some of John’s life.

John flips the damp tea towel around Sherlock’s neck and uses it to pulls him close for another kiss – but not so close as to get daubed in pavlova and drying come again. ‘I’ll dash home and get some fresh clothes for you.’

‘No need, and Mrs Hudson would kill the pair of us if you're late,’ Sherlock says. He'll be right. He doesn’t have to go anywhere to impress anyone. He’ll shower and let the water evaporate off his skin in the warm January air. He’ll rinse his shirt and if it doesn’t dry before John’s ready to go home, he’ll just wear the suit shirtless as far as his hotel. They'll pack then. Furniture is being delivered tomorrow.

‘I love you,’ John says, and kisses him again – tenderly and sweetly. Sherlock's reply is a low rumbling whisper and more kissing.

Their hearts are so full that they hardly know how life can get better – and yet they're certain that it will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is John and Sherlock's new apartment, which I can see from my flat. And I promise you, one day I looked out and I could see a child using a swing that had been set up INSIDE THAT APARTMENT. It was surreal.
> 
> A bigger version is [on this Tumblr post.](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/135696035558/in-the-next-explicit-captains-of-industry-story)


	3. Easter Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> January turns to February turns to March and April and Easter, and the pavlova celebrations continue. And it's entirely possible that it's all for science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! [A new project already!](http://www.narrellemharris.com/books/god-save-the-queen/) Thank you so much for all the support on [the previous one](http://www.narrellemharris.com/books/the-adventure-of-the-colonial-boy/).

It isn’t all pav, all the time with John and Sherlock. As has previously been noted on another topic, too much of anything, even pavlova, isn’t necessarily a good thing.

They move their things into the apartment over the next week. The steampunk amber bee is hung on the living room wall, the bat skeleton next to it, as though they are their personal heraldic crests on display.

Sherlock’s old fridge carries the Moriarty taint, so he’s set it up in his workroom (facing onto the rooftop garden space for easy ventilation) for keeping experimental perishables in. A brand new Smeg fridge gleams in the kitchen. John has already filled it and the pantry cupboard with his collection of organic and specialise sauces, oils, spices and herbs.

In the bedroom is a brand new king-size bed complete with new bedding. Newlywed manchester, surely, the kind that new-married couples were once gifted with, in the days before they simply integrated two independent adult households. One sheet set is all honeycomb and little bees, which John bought because Sherlock’s face had lit up at the sight of it, and the other, which Sherlock chose, is an elegant pattern reminiscent of Edwardian wallpaper that John kept looking at as they browsed.

They’ve only half unpacked their belongings on the very first day, when they undress each other slowly and wriggle around under the cool cotton until they’re all slick and hard and moving and shouting and laughing together for the joy of it.

It’s not until everything is unpacked and in its place that they break out another celebratory pavlova.

Sherlock presents it with fanfare after the dinner he’s made. Well. Burned. He was trying to impress John but got distracted by something flourishing in a petri dish that wasn’t supposed to be a flourishing one. It’s fortunate John’s so besotted with him that he finds Sherlock’s scientific endeavours as brilliant and delightful as the rest of him. So John whips up a little pasta with sustainably fished tuna, lemon juice and parsley. And then there’s Sherlock with the quarter pav he picked up from the Cheesecake Shop, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, which makes John laugh.

Reluctant to despoil the second set of new sheets so soon, they feed each other the pavlova while sitting in their little rooftop garden. They tease each other by sucking pav off the fork and licking cream from their lips as lasciviously as possible, until there’s nothing for it but to press together, kissing deep into each other’s mouths, tasting the sweetness of the cake entwined with the sweetness of being so in love, hands on each other’s crotches and backsides, frotting and groping like it’ll kill them to stop touching long enough to actually get inside and get naked and fucking. Though they do manage to succeed in that, at least as far as the breakfast table. Good thing that table’s sturdy, because it has to hold John’s weight while Sherlock gives his man a thorough seeing to.

A week after that, Sherlock gets his first proper client at the brand new agency in Captains of Industry. John’s old Baker Street tube sign is affixed to the door of their office, and John himself has added new text above and below. _The Baker Street Agency._

The case relates to a young woman who frequents Captains of Industry in the mid-afternoons. She sits in a corner and pores over journals of significant age, compares the pages with images on an iPad and then makes furious notes in a laptop. Historian, Sherlock deduces at first, then refines it – _family_ historian. These are personal journals, over a hundred years old, the pages covered in blotchy writing that is hard to read. Out of curiosity during her afternoons, he’s walked past her to see what she's up to. She’s comparing the primary source with the scans she’s taken and manipulated, trying to bring out elements of the document. There’s a code in that text, he’s pretty sure.

The family historian, one Tilda Barnes, is not the client. The client is her mother, Amanda Barnes, who is desperately trying to discover her daughter’s whereabouts. She has vanished suddenly from the house, except for her iPad, found lying in the garden by the front door. Amanda doesn’t care that there are no signs of struggle, or that Tilda's only been gone half a day. Something’s wrong.

John gives the deeply worried mother a friendly ear and the assurance that the man behind the Baker Street sign on the office door in the corner door might be able to help.

Sherlock can tell her a dozen things about Tilda before she’s even sat down. Tilda is not only studying documents from her family history, but has been tracking down some old secret. Something bigger than simply the family.

And Amanda Barnes knows what it is, and hasn’t told anyone, and really she should, because if Tilda has cracked the code in those diaries and someone else doesn’t want that secret out, Tilda might be in a lot trouble.

Amanda confesses. She and Tilda are descendants of Irene Hodgson, adopted daughter of Caroline Hodgson, Melbourne’s notorious 19th century brothelkeeper, Madame Brussels. The journals Tilda’s been studying belonged to Caroline. The family legend is that the fate of the Parliamentary Mace that went missing in 1891 – and was reputedly used for ‘unparliamentary purposes’ in one of Caroline’s eight city brothels on Little Lonsdale Street – is hidden therein.

Sherlock holds his hand out for the iPad, and with practically no effort deduces the passcode. 1891. ‘Passwords are the easiest things in the world to deduce. People are so irritatingly predictable.’

He opens the files of the journal images and further deduces in three minutes what it has taken the Hodgson descendants some years to work out.

The cipher runs between pages. That is, lines on one page match with lines on the page below. The scans, which show the shadows of indentations more clearly, highlight the deep impressions of what appear to be random lines and squiggles. Every two pages, read by pressing them close together so the two sets of lies merge, deliver two or three letters of a word. Over the three journals, those letters revealed:

_Irene. The mace that Tom left in Lt Lon was hid by Jack at the Yorick Club, up a chimney. Return it or leave it, as you wish, but I promised Tom no scandal about it._

Amanda gasps in realisation and leads Sherlock at a half run out into Melbourne. John is out the door at their heels with Mrs Hudson’s blessing, because well, a woman is missing, and Sherlock's very clever but he isn’t good at dealing with arseholes in quite the way John is.

Short story? The old Bohemian Yorick Club, full of writers and artists at the time, had amalgamated with the Savage Club in the mid-20th century. The Savage was now located behind a red door in Bank Place, still one of the last bastions of Men-Only Clubs in this town.

Sherlock bluffs his way in, John bristles threateningly at the doorman who belatedly tries to stop them and Amanda entering, and the three of them force their way into the vast club hall.

There they find a huge fireplace at each end of the room, walls decorated in hunting trophies and weaponry from cultures across the world, a tell-tale gap in the display showing a secret alcove (now open), several long, damaged tribal shields (behind which the mace had formerly been concealed) on the stone floor, and one very angry Tilda Barnes brandishing the long-lost mace at the four men who are preventing her from leaving with it.

One man takes a swing at Sherlock, who doesn’t duck in time and is clipped on the chin. Not hard, it’s true, but the club member finds himself thereafter flat on his back, a tribal shield pressing down on top of him, and a short, coldly furious man with a bristling moustache on top of _that._ Mr Moustache has a hell of a vocabulary on him, and he blisters the air with it while everyone else realises the jig is up. It’s been a fun 125 years being the secret holders of the missing mace, but now a _woman_ has gone and spoiled everything.

Tilda suggests some unparliamentary things they might consider doing with that mace, perhaps with the assistance of the descendant of the woman who pinched it in the first place.

That night in their apartment, John sits Sherlock on the table to inspect the slight abrasion and bruise on Sherlock’s chin. Sherlock thinks he’s fussing, but he likes John fussing over him a bit, and Sherlock is in any case effervescent with the solving of a 125 year old mystery.

Beside them is the Celebration Pavlova Sherlock bought from the Hopetoun Tearooms in the Block Arcade, because what better way to celebrate the solution of a 19th century mystery than with pavlova from a tearoom established at the same time?

Sherlock distracts John from his gentle, serious and unhappy treatment of Sherlock’s slight hurt by swiping his finger through the marshmallowy bit of the pav and daubing it on his own lips before kissing John.

One thing of course leads to another. Ten minutes later, Sherlock’s naked from the hips down, still sitting on the table, and Sherlock is fellating smashed pav from John’s fingers, legs spread as wide as possible and moaning like one of Madame Brussel’s Victorian-era harlots, while John tells him he’s amazing and brilliant and perfect, and jerks him off, using cream as substitute lube.

Three minutes after that in the shower, John frots himself to shouting climax against Sherlock’s plush arse, and everybody’s happy.

*

The end of February is marked with the White Night festival, but after an initial few hours on the outskirts, watching the light displays on the 19th century Exhibition Building, the crowds get too much for them, no matter how good-natured the night-time art lovers are. They weave through the densely packed hordes – over half a million, the papers say later – and instead sit in their garden with prosecco and strawberries and cream. It’s not at all like pavlova, but it is a little, especially when Sherlock cuts open a passionfruit and spills warm yellow pulp over John’s throat, straddles his lap and licks it up while John laughs and lets him.

Then it’s March and the Labour Day weekend, which they spend in Belgrave with a client who heard about the mace through a friend of a friend of a friend (the mace itself is still being authenticated by Official Sources). The man’s semi-tamed backyard King parrots have vanished. Turns out he has a neighbour who’s into smuggling animals and has a cage overfull of Australian birds destined for an overseas buyer. Sherlock lets all the birds free at once while John stands at the ready with a shovel. When the failed smuggler goes at him with the rake, John just blocks, parries and disarms his opponent like he was born to be a Jedi.

Sherlock adores him. Of course he does. His John Watson is a fucking _legend_ , as the Australians say. Which is exactly what John is saying to him. 'You're brilliant, Sherlock. A fucking _legend_.'

The police are a bit annoyed about them letting _evidence_ go flying off to freedom into the Dandenong Ranges, but Sherlock points out that the small cage is _full_ of evidence and if they can’t work out how to make charges stick with all of the guano and telltale feathers around, then they’re worse than their London counterparts.

When they get back to Melbourne on the Monday, they have noisy sex on the sofa in John’s Nicholas Building studio and feed each other from a slice of Hopetoun pavlova. When sufficiently recovered and full of sugary energy, they have noisy sex again, John clinging to the back of the sofa, his knees spread on the cushions. Naked Sherlock presses against John’s naked back and pulls on John’s cock while he buggers his beloved, with the scent of sweet cake wafting over them.

*

Then it’s Easter and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is starting. For the organisers, on the second day of Easter Sherlock finds where the famous up-and-coming British comedian has vanished to (visiting the secret Australian wife he married last comedy festival, unknown to his existing British husband. For the next four weeks, stand-up acts make sly references to the whole sorry business.)

Australia is sometimes known as the Land of the Long Weekend, they have so many public holidays. To John and Sherlock, it still feels extravagant, all this time off, though the café is often still operating on those days. John works at Captains of Industry a few days of the long holiday, and Sherlock still does computer consulting work from the Agency office too – he likes to work near where John is working.

Monday, though, they celebrate the solving of the Comedy Festival Case, and the fact Sherlock got paid for it, with dinner at +39 pizzeria near their place. Sherlock declares that it’s surely an occasion for pavlova, so they find a little café on Queen Street to order a piece to share.

John takes the first bite, then offers the next mouthful to Sherlock. He still loves Sherlock’s expression when he’s eating pavlova. The man is half in love with the textures and the tastes, and his bliss-face while eating is sort of adorable and faintly amusing but mostly sexy. Especially when Sherlock is using pavlova as a sex aid. John’s pretty fucking fond of pavlova himself now, as it happens. Especially, as has been said, when Sherlock is using it as a sex aid.

‘You now,’ says Sherlock breathlessly after John has slowly pulled the fork out from between his lips. It’s obscene, how they’re slowly eating this pavlova which is kind of like mouth-fucking this pavlova. John closes his lips over the next piece of meringue and cream that’s balanced on the fork, and pulls it slowly into his mouth, and he sucks on the gooey mess that sits against his tongue and palate and makes a sound that should be played on loop in the better quality porno films.

Sherlock Holmes is very much aroused right now.

John, his hand on Sherlock’s thigh, passes him the next mouthful of pav on the fork. As Sherlock swallows the dessert and slides his lips suggestively down the tines, John leans close and whispers to him, lips against his ear and his breath warm,  ‘You were magnificent on that case. You are extraordinary. You’re amazing. God. Yes. Yes, you are. You are the best thing in the world. Best thing that ever came into my life. The best and most beautiful thing. Sherlock. Sherlock. God. Yes.’

John Watson is very much aroused himself right now.

And an unexpected thing happens.

Between the warm hand on his leg, fingers pressed at the top of his inner thigh, and John’s lips on his ear, and the praise, and the soft, low ‘God, yes, yes, yes’ and the taste and scent of pavlova that is now inextricably interwoven with sexual desire and its satisfaction, achieved with the man murmuring in his ear like they are in fact having sex right now…

Sherlock bites down on the fork. His body shivers and shudders in exquisite release. He sighs.

And he freezes in a panic.

He can’t quite look at John.

It’s not like he’s ashamed. Well. Not exactly. But it wasn’t… that is to say he didn’t mean… which is to say.

_Fuck._

‘Sherlock?’

It’s a good thing Sherlock’s a detective at heart. That he _deduces_ things. Even when he is physically, mentally and emotionally uncomfortable.

Because what he observes in that instant is that John’s voice is soft in awe and what he deduces is that John knows that Sherlock has just come, untouched, in his pants at a restaurant table having been brought to orgasm through sex-by-association, and that _John finds this incredibly arousing_.

‘John?’

‘Christ. Fuck. Yes.’

John is reduced to single syllables, muttered like a fervent prayer. He adds a few more.

‘I’m so hard,’ says John.

Hardly moving in his seat (ejaculate is warm and sticky on his crotch and he won’t look to see if he trousers are showing it yet but he suspects it will soon) Sherlock moves his hand and wriggles his fingers to check this assertion. John whimpers a bit because he is indeed as hard as a brick, and Sherlock's wriggling fingers on the brick are getting near the brink of what a man can bear.

John pulls out a lobster red twenty dollar bill and throws it on the table to pay for an eight dollar dessert. He grabs Sherlock by the hand and drags him out of the café and straight down Little Bourke Street, heading for the apartment like he’s heard it’s on fire.

He’s walking a bit funny. So is Sherlock, who is hanging onto John’s hand for dear life and racing home with him. John glances back, glances down, and even though the street is darkened, Sherlock is very much aware that John can see the dark, damp patch at Sherlock’s crotch. His face flushes, possibly in some embarrassment, but actually because John bites his lower lip on a gruff and throaty growl and tugs Sherlock’s hand so that they’re very nearly running home.

If John drops the keys now in his haste Sherlock’s going to cry. But John is a man who thrives under pressure, and he is in the door, dragging and then pushing Sherlock up the stairs and through the next door into the living room and with a needy growl he’s kissing Sherlock and Sherlock is kissing back.

They fall against the sofa and John is scrambling to unbutton and unzip Sherlock’s trousers. He peels cloth away from a sticky patch and his eyes are huge and luminous. He stares down at the evidence of Sherlock's unexpected pavlova-based orgasm. He looks up at Sherlock, and his expression is wanton and pleading.

‘Fuck. Sherlock. Gorgeous. Can I…?’

‘ _Anything_!’ Sherlock gulp-shouts, because he thinks if he hasn’t got John’s cock up his arse immediately, or John’s mouth on his sticky dick, or his mouth on John’s raging erection, or some combination of everyone trying to come again, he’s going to set fire to something.

John only pulls his own trousers and pants half down, because he’s having much the same response. He frees one of Sherlock’s legs from his trousers, though, so Sherlock can spread wide and wrap his legs around John’s hips, and they are humping against each other like it’s an Olympic sport and they’re determined to beat the Americans for the Gold. Sherlock’s hard again and clutching at John’s body, his head thrown back to let John lick at his neck and suck at the skin while he humps and thrusts, his cock sliding alongside Sherlock’s.

John moves, hitches Sherlock’s legs up higher, slots his cock between Sherlock’s arsecheeks and pushes. Sherlock reaches blindly for something to use as lubricant. Nothing. He grabs John’s hand and licks and licks and licks it, drooling, to make the skin wet.

‘Smells like meringue,’ says John with an almost pitiful groan, before he pauses to smear the saliva over his cock. He spits into his hand and adds that, then gets back to it, his cock thick and hot. Between the pre-come and the pav-scented spit, he's sliding more easily into Sherlock’s cleft.

Sherlock has lifted his legs straight into the air. He spreads them and he’s saying, ‘Fuck. Yes. John. John. John. Fuck. Yes. Yes. Yes!’

John’s body agrees with this sentiment by coming to juddering climax. Sherlock demonstrates his approval of this result by jerking helplessly against John’s stomach and coming all over them both.

Then they fold into a sticky, boneless heap together on the sofa and stare at each other.

‘Well,’ says John, ‘That was interesting.’

Sherlock blinks at him.

‘You were doing that on purpose,’ says John.

Sherlock considers pretending not to understand, and he considers lying through his teeth, and decides instead to fess up.

‘Not as a hardline experiment,’ he says, a bit breathlessly - he has just come twice in fifteen minutes; takes it out of a chap, ‘More as an idle curiosity. The name gave me the idea. Pavlova. Pavlov. I wondered if you might develop a conditioned response to it.

He fears John will be angry after all, but John just giggles.

‘Backfired a bit, eh?’ He kisses Sherlock’s bared stomach, tacky with drying come.

‘Oh, I don’t know, I seem to have gained some excellent results,’ says Sherlock as nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just come in his pants in a restaurant and wasn’t now sprawled on the sofa with half his clothes still on while John, similarly bared only sufficiently for a quickie, lay pressed between his legs.

‘You’ve managed to condition both of us,’ John observes, and he grins. ‘Or maybe I should confess I may have been… idly experimenting back at you. Once I twigged what you were doing.’

Sherlock is not cross. He is fucking _delighted_. Even if it did mess up the experiment that he was being experimented on in turn. After all, it _did_ produce some excellent results.

‘How did you know?’

‘I was in the army, Sherlock. I do know a thing or two about conditioned responses. It’s what basic training is all about, so we’ll operate efficiently under the pressure of gunfire.’

‘Of course.’

John shakes his head, but he’s grinning. He kisses Sherlock’s stomach again, and makes a point of finding a warm, clean patch of skin to brush with his moustache. Sherlock likes that.

‘So you’re not angry with me.’ Sherlock sounds 99% confident and 1% worried.

John rests his chin on Sherlock’s sternum and smiles warm and lascivious up at him. ‘Baby, you came in your pants at dinner and I got aroused beyond all sense, and I’ve just had you on the sofa and we both had terrific orgasms. No. I am not angry with you. Though I’ll never be able to walk past a meringue again without getting a hard on. On the whole, I think I’m giving the evening 10 out of 10.’

 _#perfectJohn_ thinks Sherlock. _#pavgasm #pavgasminmypants_

In the past, he might have felt spectacularly awkward about it all, but John has the happy knack of making all the weird shit feel like it’s just how they roll.

_#perfectjohnisperfect #johngasm_

When they’ve showered and are cuddling in bed, John picks up his phone, pulls Sherlock close and takes a soppy-happy-sated selfie of them both. He opens it in a social media app.

‘What do you reckon I mark it hashtag pavgasm?’ John asks with a smirk, having typed it in.

Sherlock taps the screen and whether or not he meant to, John has now Instagrammed their #pavgasm.

John raises an eyebrow at Sherlock, but Sherlock doesn’t pay any attention. He is smiling and wrapped close around John’s naked body. Octolocking his pavlovian sweetheart, who has in his turn conditioned Sherlock to happiness whenever he’s near.

Though maybe, Sherlock concedes, they’ll need to pull back on the pavlovas for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many pictures and links for this one:
> 
> The Doona/sheet sets:  
>   
> 
> 
> There really was a [Madame Brussels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Hodgson) and there's a rooftop bar named after her. And she really was implicated in the still [unsolved mystery of the disappearance of the Parliamentary Mace](http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01120b.htm), though rumours that it was taken to one of her LIttle Lonsdale Street brothels are unfounded. Apparently.
> 
> The [Yorick Club](http://www.melbourneforum.org.au/articles?idArticle=4) was full of Bohemian artists but eventually was, as stated, absorbed by the Savage Club, which still exists. It's a men's only club, but I did get in to see it once because a travel writers' function was held there and I went with my travel writing husband. It's hard to find pictures of the interior, which is as I described. This grain pic shows some of the weapons etc along the walls.  
> 
> 
> The Hopetoun Tearooms are very touristy, but the cakes are good. It was established in 1892 and often appears in the Phryne Fisher novels by Kerry Greenwood.  
> 
> 
> And [this article is about the most recent White Night Festival](http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/white-night-2016-the-verdict-20160220-gmzbm3.html) which runs from 7pm to 7am overnight in February.


End file.
